SEATTLE — No team in baseball scores like the Boston Red Sox, who put on a power show Friday night at Safeco Field, where they hit the ball over, around and, in one instance, nearly through the Seattle Mariners.
The Red Sox hit three home runs and twice overcame a two-run deficit to beat the Mariners 6-4.
Mariners rookie pitcher Blake Beavan took the biggest part of the barrage, allowing 11 hits and home runs to David Ortiz, Jed Lowrie and Josh Reddick.
Reddick’s two-run homer in the sixth inning gave the Red Sox their first lead — 5-4 — and they added to it in the seventh with Adrian Gonzalez’s leadoff double and Ortiz’s RBI single.
That ended the roughest of Beavan’s seven starts since he was called up from Class AAA Tacoma on July 3. He’d never allowed more than eight hits or three runs in any of the other six starts.
“Beavan didn’t quite have the same fastball command that he’s had,” manager Eric Wedge said. “Because of that, he wasn’t able to utilize his secondary stuff the way we’ve seen. We have to remember how young he is. He can learn more on days like today, against an offense like that, than other days when you’re sailing along.”
Nobody felt the force of the Red Sox like Mariners first baseman Justin Smoak, who suffered a broken nose when a bad-hop grounder by Jarrod Saltlamacchia hit him in the face in the second inning.
Smoak, playing for the first time after missing seven games because of a bruised left thumb, underwent a CT scan to determine if there was any further injury. Results weren’t known Friday night.
“Scary,” Wedge said. “His nose is fractured. It looks like his eyes are OK. It came up on him hard and hit him square. Hopefully he’s OK. The guy battled to get back in the lineup (after the thumb injury) and hit the ball well his first AB. Hopefully it’s nothing serious.”
The game started well for the Mariners, who scored twice in the first inning on Mike Carp’s two-run single against Red Sox starter John Lackey. Carp also drove home a run with a fourth-inning double and finished 3-for-5 to continue his stretch of hot hitting.
He has a 12-game hitting streak and, in 21 games since he was called up July 19 from Class AAA Tacoma and given regular playing time, Carp has a .372 average with 21 RBI, four home runs and six doubles.
“He’s up there ready to hit,” Wedge said. “He has a pretty good command of the strike zone and he’s doing a good job for us right now.”
Carp’s double in the fourth gave the Mariners a 4-2 lead.
It was the Mariners’ last productive hit of the game.
Lowrie led off the fifth with a home run, cutting the Mariners’ lead to 4-3. One inning later, that lead was gone.
Saltalamacchia led off the sixth with a single before Reddick on a two-strike pitch from Beavan, launched a long drive off the Hit it Here Café windows beyond the right-field fence. The two-run homer gave the Red Sox a 5-4 lead, which they extended with another run off Beavan in the seventh.
The Mariners’ only decent chance the rest of the game — a two-on, nobody-out situation after singles by Dustin Ackley and Carp — faded in a flurry of strikeouts.
After Kyle Seager’s sacrifice bunt moved the runners to second and third, Red Sox left-hander Franklin Morales, relieving starter John Lackey, struck out Adam Kennedy. The Red Sox brought in right-hander Daniel Bard, who struck out Miguel Olivo to end the inning.
And, as it turned out, the Mariners’ last hope.
Bard worked around a one-out walk and struck out two in the eighth, and closer Jonathan Papelbon gave up Seager’s two-out infield hit but got Adam Kennedy to pop out for his 28th save.
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